Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Wait For Me

This is an apology.

I've been a little remiss in attending to my blog and commenting on all my friends' posts. For that I'm sorry. If you've been visiting here and wondering why the hell I'm not responding to your undoubtedly wise words and fascinating articles it isn't because I'm not interested. I just seem to be so pressed for time lately.

A while ago I opened a Twitter account. This was in response to advice from writing colleagues who said that it's advantageous to have plenty of internet presence if you're trying to sell your stories and articles. I try to Tweet something on most days, even if it's only a bit of trivia or a terrible joke. But then I also have to trawl through the people I follow and the people who follow me to see if there's anything of interest to reply to or Retweet.

On top of all this there are the magazine stories to send out, the competitions to enter and the longer pieces that I'm trying to complete. As if that isn't bad enough there's the cricket to follow, the cycle tours to keep up with and the rugby season has just started. I've just been called back to college to do a bit of student supervision and soon I'll have a couple of writing competitions to judge.

So if the rest of you could stop writing for a while, the competition organisers could put all their deadlines back a month or two and the TV channels agree to close down until Christmas it would give me chance to catch up with everything and I would be so grateful.

Good luck with that Dream It. It does get that way trying to keep up with everything; the reading, the blogging, trying to lift one's profile, the marketing, the research, learning and let us not forget to find time for the actual WRITING. Not to despair. Do what you can when you can. You have a lot of company my friend :-)

At Swanwick Writers' Summer School they reiterated what you're saying. Twitter, facebook, blog, web sites- all essential for the modern writer.If you do all that you end up with fabulous web presence, but...the cat starts scratching your leg, the books don't get written, the bills don't get paid, you run out of food, you wonder why rats are nesting in your hair ...

About Me

I have stories published in Take a Break's Fiction Feast, That's Life (Australia), The Weekly News, People's Friend, Yours and The Lincolnshire Echo. I also have a short story published in the charity anthology 100 Stories for Queensland.
I am a member of Trowell Writers' Trust and Nottingham Writers' Club. I have had several first, second and third places in their short story competitions over the last few years. In 2008 I was runner up in the National Association of Writers' Groups annual competition for short stories. In May 2009 I was awarded second place in Writing Magazine short story competition and the entry is available on their website.